1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to computer testing systems, and more particularly to a computer testing system that creates and transmits any type of data record to a record processing system to simulate a real-time production environment for testing the record processing system.
2. Related Art
Transaction service providers, such as telecommunications companies, use transaction records for various purposes in representing the services provided. The transaction service providers create records during or upon completion of services for billing, reporting, resource planning, fraud management, and other purposes. The transaction service provider sends these records to various record processing systems for handling.
To test a specific record processing system prior to bringing the system on-line with the transaction service provider, a testing system creates and transmits simulated records to the record processing system. This allows for the testing of the functionality and stress capabilities of the record processing system in a controlled test environment that emulates a real-time production environment.
One example is the testing of a fraud management system (FMS) for a telecommunications network. A FMS is a record processing system that receives various types of records from the network and detects fraudulent telephone calls through the use of thresholding and pattern recognition processes. The FMS reads multiple record formats and structures that the telecommunications network generates. Therefore, testing of the FMS requires a testing system that generates simulated records representing the multiple record structures that the telecommunications network generates and transmits to the FMS record processing system. Then, after generating the simulated records, the testing system transmits the simulated records to the FMS such that the transmission emulates a real-time production environment of the telecommunications network.
A problem arises whenever the structure of a record is changed in the network, or when a new record is added. The corresponding simulated record that is generated by the testing system must also change or be added. In conventional testing systems, this requires extensive programming changes to the software of the testing system in order to generate simulated records with the proper record structure.
A second problem arises when there is a change to the transport method of sending the simulated records from the network to a record processing system. The transport method is how the records are transmitted from the network to the record processing system. For example, a problem arises when the transport method changes from an X.25 protocol to a TCP/IP. Such a change requires changes to the software of the testing system because the testing system must accurately emulate the transport of the simulated records from the network to the record processing system.